Modern medicine and homœopathy / by J.J. Drysdale.

  • Drysdale, J. J. (John James), 1817-1892.
Date:
1870
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Modern medicine and homœopathy / by J.J. Drysdale. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    law of specific relationship. This law applies exclusively to the vital actions of medicine when they correspond directly to the purely vital actions deranged in disease. There is, therefore, a certain field where the principle is not applicable, and there w'e must use and do use exactly the same remedies as other medical men. Among these are all dietetic and chemical means, evacuants, stimulants, &c., which may be needed for removing exciting causes and restoring nutrition. The boundary line between spe¬ cific and other medication has not been and is not yet fixed ; accordingly we are prepared to abandon attempts to treat specifically ailments which a better knowledge of their nature shows not to be within the scope of specific treatment. Of this we have several conspicuous exam¬ ples. TV hen the true nature of parasites was discovered, we at once abandoned the treatment of them exclusively as diseases, and began to give vermicide remedies in full dose. Likewise, we were among the very first to discern and adopt the use of carbolic acid and antiseptics. In the large and fatal class of zymotic diseases, although the homoeopathic law applies conspicuously in their preven¬ tion, we have hitherto failed to find how the contagious principles can be adapted to the cure of the fully deve¬ loped disease; and if hereafter any agents should be discovered capable of curing it by destroying the conta¬ gious matter within the body, we are prepared to adopt it with gladness, though it be not homoeopathic. In short, we simply use the homoeopathic principle where appli¬ cable—neither more nor less—according to the best oi our ability. And in any case we simply use it because it is better than any other, and are ready to give it up for a better. . We are exactly, I hope, in the position of men of true science—seeking to apply the homoeopathic law wherever experience shows it to be applicable; not bound together by a sectarian dogma to be followed blindly, though we can accept no contradiction not backed by experiment. Although there are differences of opinion within our body, still I think it will be admitted by this Congress, as it is likewise by that ornament to his profes¬ sion Dr. Caroll Dunham, of New York, that no more stringent tests should be given of what constitutes a homceopathist than that it is simply every one who accepts the similia similibus as the law of specifics. In all other respects every individual should be free to judge for himself. All acknowledge that ultimately the name of homoeopathist must cease, and many think it ought to be